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Are fitness trackers truly for health benefits, or have they just become a trendy fashion piece?

An avid fitness fan as well as tech enthusiast, I love fitness apps and trackers. They manage to combine my love of staying healthy and tech obsession perfectly. Throughout my day, my Huawei Watch linked with Google Fit pretty perfectly tracks my steps and movement, and then come exercise time, my Fitbit Charge 2 is a perfectly capable helper.

I have noticed that as I talk to people, I find myself immediately checking their wrists for fitness trackers because I find myself genuinely curious how much people truly utilize them. While I make no judgements on a person's appearance or lifestyle, I have noticed people that where them daily seem to make little progress on their fitness goals. Again, everyone is different and weight is not the overall indicator of health, it does make me wonder whether fitness trackers have become, like other electronics, more about appearance than health.

While I have not delved entirely in to all of the settings of either Google Fit or Fitbit, I do know that there is much more to them than just step tracking. For instance, one can track sleep, heart rate, calories, and even set reminders to move. When set up with an exercise routine, it can make sure you are getting the most benefit by checking vitals. Even with all of that, for those who use them for step tracking, are you really checking it for health benefits.

On my Fitbit, I have reminders set that if I remain sedentary for too long, it basically tells me to quit being lazy. If I want to maximize my health, I need to keep moving. Do all fitness tracker people take advantage of this? If you look down and see that you only took 5000 steps that day, are you getting up to move?

I may be the odd one in all of this, but I feel a sense of guilt if I don't see the number I am looking for. My watch, as well as my Fitbit, remind me to move so that I can attempt to stay healthy. I know many that use these devices for exactly what they were created for, and yet, I also see many that seem to be oblivious to the health benefits they can bring. This makes me wonder if fitness trackers are still mainly a tool to stay healthy or if they have become a trendy wearable that people like to show off.

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